Wednesday, June 14, 2017

I don’t understand prophets. A prophet is supposed to be divinely inspired and one who relays messages from God. Religions differ on whether God is speaking in words to the prophets, or whether the prophets receive a message from God through thoughts that enter the prophets’ heads when they are “in the receiving mode.” Religions even differ on the method of becoming a prophet – some are specifically called by God for this position and some are elected by the church.

It is odd that prophets are so cultural. A few years back, becoming a prophetess was quite popular, with women proclaiming titles such as Prophetess Smith or Prophetess Caroline; I saw it all over the Internet within a certain portion of the Christian religion. Think about that – it only happens in certain churches and in cultures that allow women such positions. You would think God would be calling women worldwide in a consistent manner.

How does one become a prophet? Usually, after hearing about the idea, at some point they are called. Sometimes they have been receiving messages from God for years and just know they are special. And as I said before, some are elected. A few people will argue that anyone can be a prophet, but according to Christian sites, a prophet is specifically called and it is a job that they must take whether they want it or not. Just keep in mind there are a lot of prophets in the church who are mistaken and did not receive that type of message from God. Such positions are always defined on websites with warning messages about false prophet-calling, and definitions are never clear-cut.

Oddly, there are prophets for all the Abrahamic religions. It seems that Christians, Muslims and Jews are all getting divine messages from God, and God is “speaking” directly to them. You would think God would correct whichever religions and sects are wrong and would let the prophets know not to deliver messages in the wrong religion. For example, if a prophet were Muslim and Christianity turns out to be the “real religion,” you would think God would tell the Muslim prophet that he had the wrong book, and that he needs to spread messages of Christianity. It’s rather mean, don’t you think, for God to tell prophets to spread Islamic messages when those messages will convert others to Islam and doom all of them to Hell?

To help you understand my thoughts, what if Islam is the right religion and all of the Christians have been told the wrong beliefs by prophets who received their messages from God and all the Christians and prophets of Christianity are doomed to Hell because of it? (I know you are saying right now that it is not possible because your religion is so much better than theirs is - I know how people think when it comes to defending God.)

Think about why God would send out prophesies to other religions. Because he is still doing this! Your next defense of God will probably be: “It doesn’t matter. At some point, those people who get messages to be a different religion would have heard about Christianity and would have heard about Jesus at some point in their lives and would have had an opportunity to switch to Christianity.” Really? The only thing they are taught is that Christianity is the wrong religion, just as you are taught that Islam is the wrong religion.
God is a little more effective in his conversions to Christianity now that we have the Internet, so some places in the middle-East are being infiltrated by Christianity that never were before, but there are still many places on Earth that never hear positive words about Christianity or any other religion than their own.

Let us not leave unexplored the idea that perhaps it is not God who is sending the “wrong” messages to the prophets in other religions. Most religions have built-in to their religions the ideas of “false gods” and “false prophets.” But if you think about it, do you believe there are gods in the sky, false gods, giving false prophetic messages to their prophets to spread around? How many false gods are in the sky?

If you decide that there is only one god in the sky, do you think there are false prophets who are purposefully making up messages to fool people?
I think neither idea is likely. What is more likely is that all prophets genuinely believe they have been given the gift of prophesy, but are receiving messages they created themselves in their own brains.

About Me

I became an atheist thanks to YouTube! For years I hovered between having a God, being "spiritual" and being agnostic - in fact, most of my life. There was only a short period of time when I was a Jesus Freak along with my brother, but I did not fit in with his group. I attended a religious college for two years and felt like the "odd woman out" there as well. One day on the main page of AOL there was a picture of Kirk Cameron and another picture of a pretty young blond woman with curly long hair and a cute little chin. They said she got more "hits" on YouTube than Kirk did! Of course, it was Zomgitscriss! I watched her video and thought, "You know, I think like she does, but she is a lot smarter than I am!" I watched more of her videos, and she said it was just a hop, skip and jump from agnosticism to atheism. I thought, "Oh, I could never be an atheist - it's such a harsh word!" I decided to look at her favorites and saw a big guy with long hair who looked like he belonged in a motorcycle gang. I smirked and thought, "This will be good - let's see what he has to say," thinking he had to sound dumb. It turned out to be Aron Ra, and I was treated to video after video about evolution, taxonomy and phylogeny - subjects I knew nothing about! What an education! One day, I clicked on Pangeaprogress' videos. I saw his beautiful nature videos of Africa. Suddenly, a pack of lions surrounded an antelope and started eating her, slowly, starting at the hips and wherever they could bite. I was totally shocked. I had been overprotected a good share of my life, and my mother always told me that animals "always went right for the neck and the death was over in an instant." Well, it wasn't. From that moment on, I was an atheist. No God could sit by and watch such cruelty and pain and suffering and allow it to happen. No excuses. This is how YouTube converted me, and my eyes have been opened to so many new ideas thanks to the Internet!